How To Cope With A Friendship Break-Up - with Cynthia Nixon - Special Release

0:26Race the rudders! Hello, everyone. I wanted to share my Failing With Friends subscribe episode with Cynthia Nixon for all of you. Each week, my guest and I answer your failures and questions. It's a real candid moment where the spotlight is taken off my guest and they become your agony aunt or uncle. When you subscribe, you get a weekly Failing With Friends episode just like this one and add free access to all How to Fail episodes. Follow the link in the show notes to find out how you can subscribe. Thank you so much. And we can't wait to see you there.

1:12Hello, dear subscribers, and welcome back to Failing With Friends. This is where we turn the mic over to you. And you have been busily sending in your questions, your pleas for advice, your failures, and we're so delighted. Thank you. Please keep them coming. This week I'm joined by the effervescently wonderful Cynthia Nixon. And we've just been talking about green tea and how much we both love green tea. So if you want advice on green tea, I would suggest asking Cynthia, not me. I thought I knew a lot. She knows way more. I imagine you're exceptional at advice giving. I'm pretty good. Yeah. I'm pretty good.

1:47I get that. And also your mother sounded like she was so great. My mother was a very wise person. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay, so Anne via Instagram asks, whose failures would you most like to hear about? Oh my goodness. You can have anyone dead or alive. Anyone dead? Well, I always want to hear about Shakespeare's everything. Yes. It's just anything, you know, if you want, ask me whose hats I wanted to hear about or whose lunches I wanted to hear about. Any information I get on Shakespeare would be good. But I have to also say I would like to hear about Donald Trump's failures if he thinks he has any.

2:26I would like to take Wonder Woman's magic lasso and tie it around him so he would have to tell the truth. Yes. And then I would like to hear. We would love that too. I often get asked whether I would consider having someone like Donald Trump on the podcast or when we had Boris Johnson as prime minister, whether I would have him. And my answer is always, I don't think they're self-aware enough. I don't think they would see Acknowledge the failure. Yeah. And I think there's a specific issue with a certain kind of straight white man where social conditioning has made them feel they can't admit to failure because vulnerability is seen wrongly as weakness.

3:01But also that sense that you're born into a world that's still built in your image. So your success is sort of guaranteed. Right. That's what they say about Donald Trump, right? He was born on third base and he thought hit a home run. Exactly. Whereas if you're a marginalized person in any way. Do you understand baseball metaphors? Barely, but I just was being polite. I think, I will say the one thing though that, you know, if I had things to do over again, I would, I think I would have tried a lot more things that I didn't try and do because I was afraid of failing at them. That is such a profound piece of insight.

3:43I really think, you know, in terms of, look, I've had a wonderful career and I've played so many wonderful parts, but I feel like particularly when I was a young person, there were, you know, I didn't put in the extra effort because I didn't want to seem to be wanting something that then they said, you're not good enough. Yes. That's so relatable. Yeah. actually it really reminds me I've never spoken to anyone about this and it's so weird that it's come up now Amadeus as you know yeah it's my is one of my favorite films yeah um and I had never seen the play but when I went to university and I I loved acting and I was stellar in my school production of A Streetcar Named Desire I went to university and they were putting on Amadeus the play and I was like I'm going to try out for the part of Mozart's wife and I went to this audition and I so wanted it and I loved the piece and everything and I thought I did a good job and they didn't give me the part and then I never tried again.

4:45I thought, well, that's it. I was so humiliated. And I completely agree with you that the greater failure is the risk not taken. Yes. And I have to say my parents had so many wonderful qualities, but I think they had both of them this thing. I think they had a snobbery about them that was kind of like, you either have it or you don't. Yes. Kind of a thing. Don't be seen to try too hard. Don't be seen to try too hard. And so like, I think I spoke earlier about how important it was to me to know how to cook, but it was like nobody ever taught me. So it was like in the dead of night, I had to, like when I would go out of town.

5:29I would take cookbooks and make the most complicated things because, again, maybe this relates to the Thanksgiving thing, in front of people, like not being able. It reminds me of a story that my mother told about a friend of hers who had twins, twin boys, and they would sleep in the same crib, you know, and one of them seemed to be much more advanced, And he was, you know, standing before the other one and doing things. And his mother passed the crib one night when the boys were ostensibly asleep. And so when the boy who was the more advanced, quote unquote, was doing things and pulling up, the other boy seemed, you know, not interested, not looking, you know, in his own world, like just nonplussed, noninterested.

6:20And she walked by the crib in the middle of the night, and there was the other boy trying to pull himself up when no one was watching. Oh. And, yeah. And I feel like, yeah, not trying things because you're afraid you're going to fail at them also has to do with not embracing the idea that you get good at something by trying it and failing at it. That there is a learning curve and it doesn't mean you're a bad person or you're deficient in some way. No. Yeah. Try, try again. And that story is such an amazing example of the fact that when we make ourselves vulnerable or we're seen being vulnerable, actually it's the thing that connects us.

7:13That's such a moving story because I relate to the twin who's not as quote unquote advanced and putting himself up. But you think how old was that? That kid was not even a year probably. And that to have that, already that idea of shame or competition, that it's that early, that it's that baked in. How are the twins now? I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure they're great. I don't know. Wow. Well, that took us to a very interesting place. I would most like to, I mean, there are so many people I'd most like on this podcast. I've always wanted Michelle Obama and she's on so many podcasts now. And I'm like, please come on back to Bale.

7:55You'll get, keep trying. I will. Keep trying. You may fail to get her for a while and then you'll keep trying and then you'll get her. And I'll be ever on brand. Exactly. Exactly. And Michelle, if you can't do it, I'm happy to have Barack. Okay. So Lily in Newcastle asks, I fell out with my then best friend almost a decade ago now. We patched it up, but things were never the same again. What made it worse was that she sort of switched allegiances and became best pals with another of our friends, someone the two of us weren't actually very close with originally. Suddenly, I was an outsider. I'm lucky enough to have loads of other friends, but this particular instance of being suddenly pushed away has stayed with me ever since.

8:36I'm going to her wedding this summer, and even her hen do, but we're no longer actually close. And it makes me sad. What would you do in this instance? Thanks so much, Lily. Oh, that's very hard. That's so hard, Lily. That's very hard. Have you ever had a friendship breakup, Cynthia? I have. I have. I had a, I, uh, the person who is now my best friend, I, I ostensibly broke up with her in high school and stopped and literally stopped speaking to her. I didn't tell her even. I just stopped acknowledging when she would speak to me. So horrible. Why? Did she do something? She really pissed me off.

9:17She really pissed me off. In a nutshell, I guess I would say she was a great student, but she was always in tears and we spent so much, me and our other friends spent so much time reassuring her and booing her up. And then, of course, she would get a 99 on the thing that she was so sure she had failed. And then once she was, you know, a right again, she would go off and like party. I mean, we were not partying. We were like 14, 15, whatever. But like party with other people who were ostensibly acquaintances of hers. And it was like, and it happened again and again and again. And it was like, really?

10:01We're only, we're your close friends. We're only here for you when you're in crisis. And then as soon as the crisis has passed, you're running yourself ragged again in ways that are just for other people. For other people. But did you say she's your best friend now? She is. Oh, so you made, this is so helpful because you're like Lily's ex-best friend in a way, but you made up. I guess so. I mean, partly I want to say I don't really have enough information about what happened. And I guess one thing I would say is I wouldn't probably try to broach it at her wedding. No. How did you make it up, if it's not too personal a question, how did you make it up with your...

10:41And it's so funny, I don't really remember, but it took us years. It took us years. And it was like we crept toward each other slowly. And I had a lot of apologizing to do. And a lot of, I mean, it felt bad for a long time. You know, it was very painful. And sometimes still we'll say, we'll reference something that happened to us in college and we'll be like, I didn't know that. It's like, oh, right. We were not speaking at that time. This is amazing. I literally wrote a book about friendship because I find it so fascinating. And friendship love is as powerful, if not more so, than romantic love.

11:24Well, that's kind of what Sex and the City is about, right? Exactly. I mean, and thank goodness that show existed when it did and showed that so visibly on screen because there aren't that many other cultural representations of it. And I think what that means is that we don't have the language. We spent so much time on the language of romantic love. And so when something like this happens and when there's a friendship breakup, sometimes people do drop out and ghost. I was ghosted by one of my closest friends and we've never spoken since. and actually Lily to come back to you one of the things that I mean I tend not to live with regret but one of the things I might have done differently if I could show up as my present self when that happened is that I think I would have broached the subject with her not at her wedding but I think you've asked us what we would do I think I would reach out to your friend and ask to go for coffee.

12:17And I know that sounds, oh tea, green tea. I know that sounds so scary. I can feel frightened just suggesting it, but I promise you nothing bad is going to happen. That she can't hurt you, I don't think, any more than you've already been hurt. And I wonder if there's an element of miscommunication here. And I think you will feel so much better having had a conversation for your peace of mind before you go to the hen do or the wedding. And actually, off the back of that conversation, you could make an informed decision about whether you actually feel it's appropriate for you and your sense of self if you do actually want to go to these events, because it's okay not to.

12:57And I think that I would broach the conversation with love and say, your friendship is really important to me. I sense - So you're saying do it before the - I'm saying do it before, yes. Wow. And I think you can do it with love. So you can say, your friendship is so important to me. And I've sensed that there's been a shift in it. And I just want to check in with you as to how you're feeling about it, because I don't want to make things awkward for you when you've got these major life events coming up. And that's enough. I think that's nice. I mean, I also think, right, because I think what you're talking to about is a two-step, right?

13:34Yes. And one is, Because I was also going to suggest that, that not to perhaps ambush this person at a coffee, even if it's after the wedding, but to actually write a not short letter or email. Just, you know, again, with love saying, I miss you. And I, you know, and I also don't maybe understand what happened. And I would just love to, you know, understand. understand. Because, I mean, that's the fact of the matter is in my breakup with my good friend, who is now again my good friend, you know, I was at fault. I did something really terrible and young and stupid, right? I wouldn't even explain to her what was the matter.

14:23I just literally pretended she didn't exist. But once we were able, it's taken years, you know, but once we were repaired, you know, I handled the situation really badly, but I was reacting to something that was really painful and true. And she knows it was. So I made it worse by not talking about it, actually. By not talking about it, by just... Which is so relatable again, because it's one of those things that if it's scary, just... In some ways, it's much easier to do. And you know why it's easier to do also? It makes you feel powerful. You hurt me, you don't exist anymore. I can see you're pained and puzzled and confused and abandoned.

15:21And I feel in some way glad sad because you hurt me and now I've hurt you back. That's so honest. So true. It's true. It's true. The other thing I'd say, Lily, if you, if you just get to the point where you're like, I can't confront this. I don't want to, I would not go to the Hindu. I think Hindu's a bachelorette. I got it. I got it. I got it. I hate Hindus. I think they're awful. They're just so uncomfortable in so many different ways. I would not go to the Hindu and I would go to the wedding because the wedding is more easily controlled and you can leave as soon as the dinner's done that would be the alternative if you want to exist in a state of functional denial you could do that too but i think either writing or reaching out verbally is the way to go yeah yeah okay yeah final one sk on instagram asks what if your partner isn't ready to have kids but wants to someday but you're almost 40, what are you meant to do?

16:21Oh, SK, you poor thing. This is a big one. This is a big one. So I'll kick off first because I don't have children and I wanted to, but it's one of my failures. And I now have three stepkids and I have so many God children and nieces and there are so many different ways to parent in this world. And I'm very grateful to experience some of them. But I was broken up with just before my 39th birthday by someone who wasn't ready to have kids. And it was so devastating at the time, but it was very illuminating because being single and about to turn 39, I was then confronted with, well, we're lucky enough to live in an age where I could pursue this as a single woman.

17:09And because I had the means at my disposal, which again is a huge privilege afforded to me, I could go and get a sperm donor and I could do it as a single person. And when I was really honest with myself, I realized I didn't want to. That actually it was more important for me to have a loving relationship with an involved and enlightened human being and to be in that romantic partnership. And then hopefully within that to have children. That children would come out of that in some way. Exactly. And so I think there's a very important question that you can ask yourself here, SK, which is which one do you want more and it's okay to say I want the loving relationship more because I am here to tell you that even though I spent 12 years trying and failing to have biological children and I never thought I would be at peace with letting go of that yearning I am so at peace with it and so creatively fulfilled and I have an amazing partner and so there are different ways to live a life.

18:11And I think I would ask yourself that question. Yeah. I mean, I have a lot to say. I think if you want to have children and it is kind of, right, I think that, ask yourself that question first. What is more important to you, this partner or having children soon? Yes. And if the question that comes back to you is having children, then I think you need to get on it. I do. And I think you need to make clear to that person, you know, I need to do this and I'm going to do this and I really want to do it with you. But if you don't want to do it with me, I'm going to do it. I have friends who didn't go to college and they feel really bad about it.

19:02And I went to college and it was fine. And I try to tell them that, like, if you've been to college, yeah, okay, I'm glad I went, you know. And if you have a yearning for biological children, it is a very primal yearning. And it is very, if you do not have biological children, it is very hard to even conceive of a, no pun intended, conceive of a reality in which you do not have them. But I will tell you, I have two biological children and one non-biological child, and there is no difference. I really cannot emphasize that to you strongly enough. I mean, when children come from your biology, it's fun to say, oh, he looks like my mom.

19:57Oh, he looks like my dad. Oh, he looks like my brother. You know, that stuff is fun. But if you want to have children, there are so many ways to have children. You can give birth to them from your own egg. You can give birth to them, as my wife did, from someone else's egg. You can adopt them or you can marry someone who already has them. Or, you know, I mean, I was going to say I feel like I have relatives who for them, their nieces or nephews are so paramount. That is not the same. That is not the same as having a child in your house. but I would say get on it but just know this is not you know this is not the Olympics that if you if you don't get a 9.9 or whatever on having your own biological children there are you know they don't give out gold medals for this.

21:02brilliant nothing more to add thank you so much for sharing that yeah yeah and thank you sk for writing in and we wish you the best of luck and in whatever way you parent you're going to be amazing at it cynthia this is i don't want this to end i don't either i really don't you don't need to go so you're probably filming two roles like around the corner i have a fitting i have all of the press for the next few weeks for both And Just Like That and The Gilded Age. I think I'm going to be there for a lot of hours. Do you wear different press promo clothes for the different shows? I do. I mean, they're not specific to the character, but no.

21:45Different vibe. It is quite intimidating to know how to dress to interview someone on Sex and the City and I'm Just Like That. So I just went classic. I love it. I was like, there's no point. I love it. Thank you. I love it. Thank you so much. Thank you. It was such a pleasure. Oh, I've loved it. Such a pleasure. I've loved every minute. Me too.

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22:45You've taken the office step challenge a step too far. Don't worry, though. Sierra also has yoga gear. It might be a good place to find your zen. Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. Cynthia Nixon, how do I love the let me count the ways? I mean, oh, she was heaven. From the moment she arrived on her own, by the way, absolutely zero entourage, wearing this gorgeous green dress that really brought out the color in her eyes and a Wonder Woman backpack on both shoulders. It was so cute. And then removed from said backpack a flask of water and a flask of tea. Now, if you are a regular listener, which as a subscriber you are, you will know that I am a green tea obsessive.

23:42And she and I had a good, I would say 10 minute chat about our favourite green tea varieties and about the fact that I also travel with my own tea. I am that person. I've become that person. And she makes her own blend of green jasmine tea with homegrown lemongrass and then some sort of peach blossom affair that she adds in for flavour. So she poured her own tea out and her own water out, which FYI was lemon mint, and then sat down and made me feel so comfortable in her presence. And I love it when an interview feels like a genuine conversation. and that's how I felt with her. I want to hang out with her all of the time.

24:25I want to go to her home. I want to eat those 25 pound bags of quinoa. She doesn't have to pretend to be perfect with me. I just want to hang out in her house and put the world to rights. I feel I could learn so much from her. And I think some of my favorite parts of that interview were where she gave me the grace to ask nerdy questions about things that I've loved watching her in, particularly Amadeus. If you haven't watched Amadeus, I rewatched it recently. And unlike some of those movies that you see kind of 20 years ago and you're obsessed with, and then you rewatch them and they actually feel really cringe and sort of hammerly put together, Amadeus really does stand the test to time.

25:12It's such an extraordinary movie and so brilliantly performed by everyone. And Cynthia plays the part, as she said, of Mozart's Maid. And in anyone else's hands, that part would be probably eminently forgettable. She doesn't appear that much, but she does so much when she comes on screen. And to hear the process of how she auditioned for it, how she flew to Europe for the first time when she was still at school she was a teenager and I just find it phenomenal that she had that kind of presence of mind to ask to be flown back so that she could still go on with her schooling and then that insight into Milos Forman directing and telling F.

25:53Mary Abraham to stop acting and that's something that I've learned from having interviewed stars like screen stars that the difference between film acting and stage acting is I believe that that when you act on camera you need to do relatively little because the camera picks up the nuance of your facial expressions and I found that so riveting and then also found it very moving when she was talking about what her mother said about inhabiting the truth of the character's circumstance and how actually it's not that you try to cry if you're playing someone who's sad you actually try not to cry and that being the most human thing I found it really enlightening and um I said to her as she left I was like I just could carry on with this all day and she very sweetly said me too but I've got to go to a fitting and she's going for a fitting for two sets of promo for the two roles that she was doing and just like that and the gilded age and she just continues at the age of 59 but looking 25 to be such an epic talent.